Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/336

312 the total premiums received exceed the total losses paid, a rising standard must be of more benefit to the companies than to the policy holders.” How wise! And that the companies may not have this benefit, he proposes by the silver standard to strip the policies of the policyholders of nearly half their value! But does not Mr. Bryan know that most of these companies are mutual insurances, and that what benefits or injures the companies therefore benefits or injures the policyholders?

As to the savings bank depositors he says: “Under a gold standard there is increasing danger that the savings bank depositors will lose their deposits because of the inability of the banks to collect their assets.” And to avert this danger, Mr. Bryan advises a policy which would, by the introduction of the silver standard, at once cut down the value of those assets to 50 cents on the dollar. He further says: “If the gold standard is to continue indefinitely the depositors in savings banks may be compelled to withdraw their deposits in order to pay living expenses.” Indeed!

It is a remarkable fact that since 1873, the year of the great crime, until 1895, during the period when we had to suffer all the calamities of the gold standard, the deposits in savings banks have, instead of being withdrawn for living expenses, increased, positively increased, much over $1,000,000,000. And they would have increased still more had not some depositors withdrawn their deposits, not for living expenses, but to send them to Europe for safety, out of the way of Mr. Bryan and other friends of the toiling masses. They will, no doubt, bring that money back as soon as Mr. Bryan is beaten.

Let us go on. Almost every man in active business is a debtor and a creditor at the same time—every merchant, every manufacturer—a creditor to his customers and a debtor to those from whom he buys. Let Mr. Bryan bring on his panic, and hundreds, if not thousands of them,